Canada could unveil $30 billion budget

USD/CAD is down a half-cent ahead of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's first budget. I wrote a preview of the budget yesterday. The details will start leaking out at 4 pm ET (2000 GMT).

The main number that might move the market is the budget deficit projection. It's set at around $18 billion this year but that doesn't include the fresh spending in this budget. A number that's floated around is $30 billion but the government might want to undershoot that, if only to maintain some semblance of fiscal responsibility.

I think CAD would like a bigger deficit at the moment to support near-term growth but it may all come back to the details.

In the meantime, here is one of the Canadian exports that hasn't fallen in value -- humour.